“The Home That Was Not Mine”

The mansion loomed before her like a forgotten cathedral — tall, breathless, and cold.

It had taken them three days after the hospital incident to bring her home.

Home.

A lie dressed in marble.

She stepped out of the car wrapped in silence. Her bodyguard still unnamed to her, still unreadable ,opened the door for her with the quiet grace of someone who carried secrets in his soul. His eyes met hers, and for the first time, she felt steadied. Not safe, but steadied.

The gates shut behind her like the closing of a cage.

The house smelled of wealth, lavender, and something she couldn’t name — like grief hiding in expensive perfume.

Anne walked through the glassy corridors on eggshells. The floors gleamed, her footsteps echoed, and every wall watched her. She didn’t belong here. Even the chandeliers felt like strangers.

Everything was too bright, too sharp. Her room — Kim Anna’s room — was twice the size of her mother’s entire house in Nigeria. Silk sheets, velvet curtains, gold-lined mirrors, and yet… all she could see were shadows.

She cried silently the first night. The second. The third. Not out of fear anymore — but because she knew this was not a place she could ever call home.

She was a guest in her own skin.

Aunt Mary only came twice.

Each visit was short, cautious, held like a breath. The second time, Anne heard the whispers: “She’s just like her mother, we need to be in control , she’s our puppet and none from her mother’s side is allowed to break it. Besides she’s black and she might say too much. “

They didn’t let her in again.

Only three souls in the mansion offered her peace.

Her bodyguard, always lingering in the background — firm, quiet, and strangely gentle.

Her uncle, Dr. kim Jae-hyun — whose presence felt like calm water in a storm.

And her father’s twin, Mrs. Jung Hye-Ri — graceful, kind, and too good to be true.

Anne watched her closely. She smiled often but spoke little. Her eyes flickered with something Anne couldn’t read. Not yet. But she knew better than to trust a smile just because it was warm.

The servants didn’t speak to her, but their eyes did.

Pity.

Soft, bitter pity.

They bowed. They obeyed. But their silence said it all.

They had seen things.

They knew things.

But none of them dared utter a word.

Weeks passed like slow-moving ghosts.

Then came the day she was enrolled in school.

A new beginning she didn’t ask for.

But something inside her stirred — not hope, not yet — just the whisper of movement. Of control.

The uniform felt foreign on her skin. The halls of the school were wide, shining, crowded with perfect faces. Rich children with perfect lives, or so it seemed.

Her cousins ,Seo Yerin and Ji Joe , were there too. And as expected, they made sure her life continued to feel like poison.

Whispers.

Laughter.

Lies.

But Anne had changed. The girl they mocked before would have cried. Now, she simply observed.

She stopped trying to defend herself and instead began to watch. Listen. Learn.

Because her heart still belonged to the girl in Nigeria. And if there was any way to return to her body, her life _no matter how broken it wasshe would find it.

She chose solitude. She chose silence.

Not because she was weak.

But because peace was her armor now.

Then she met Face ,a boy with quiet eyes and a scar on his lip, someone who seemed to carry storms in his chest too. His name was John and her best friend even tho she doesn’t remember

He didn’t ask questions.

He didn’t believe rumors.

He simply sat next to her in the library one day and said, “You look like someone who remembers too much.”

She didn’t reply.

But something in her softened.

One evening, while watching the winter sun fall behind the frosted windows, her doctor uncle entered her room.

He brought no pills, no reports. Just truth.

He sat beside her and said gently,

“Your name… is Kim Anna Darlene. Your father was our eldest,He was the best of us. And the only one brave enough to love a Black woman in this house.”

Her breath caught.

“He married her — your mother , despite our father’s fury. And for that, he was disowned. You were born in Africa, country unknown but you were Loved. Safe. Until they begged him to return… after much pleading from our late mother. He came back. He forgave. He trusted. Then he and your mother died in a car crash. I might not know much but I know it wasn’t just an accident it was plotted on but no evidence was found even the trunk driver was no where to be seen until now.”

Anne stared at him, hollow.

“Why didn’t anyone bother looking deeper into it since it wasn’t just an accident?” she whispered.

His eyes flickered. “ everything was plotted Anna , I tried but I couldn’t find a single evidence and I gave up but deep down I wish if only I can find the footage of that night it happened. That’s what the world believes, it was an accident .”

That night, she stood in front of her mirror and saw not a stranger… but fragments. Of two worlds. Of two girls.

One dying. One already dead.

Grandfather Kim Seokjin never spoke much to her. But gifts came daily.

Jewelry. Dresses. Books. Things she never asked for.

She realized, quietly, that he was grieving. That she reminded him of the son he lost.

But guilt wasn’t love.

Still, in those moments when their eyes met across the long, silent dining table — she saw regret, not cruelty.

Weeks turned into a strange kind of rhythm.

Her bodyguard watched her with unreadable loyalty.

Her doctor uncle told her pieces of the truth, never all of it.

Her aunt kept smiling like she knew the ending of the story.

Anne began to feel… stronger.